5.  The applicants were born in 1980 and 1979 and live in Hatay and Urfa respectively.
6.  On 3 May 1998 Kenan Mak, a student at the Abant İzzet Baysal University in Bolu (“the university”), was killed in an attack. Thereafter, on 3 May of every subsequent year students at the university have held a meeting to mark the anniversary of the killing.
7.  On 3 May 2002 the two applicants were studying at the university when they attended the remembrance meeting. The day before the meeting the chancellor of the university had indicated his approval of the meeting taking place in the canteen of the university.
8.  According to a report drawn up by gendarmes who were responsible for the security of the university, seventy to eighty “left wing students” wearing photographs of Kenan Mak gathered in the university’s canteen on 3 May 2002. The students then proceeded to the university’s garden where they were met by the gendarme Captain, F.Y. Captain Y. told the students that their gathering was in breach of the Meetings and Demonstration Marches Act (Law no. 2911) because they were not holding it in the designated place, namely the canteen. He asked the students to disperse, and warned that “otherwise force would be used” to disperse them. Instead, the students displayed a banner stating “down with fascism, Kenan Mak is immortal” and chanted slogans such as “shoulder to shoulder against fascism”. The students then started walking towards the chancellor’s offices. The gendarmes present in the vicinity used force and dispersed the students. The applicants and seven other students were arrested by the gendarmes. During the scuffle Captain Y.’s little finger and a gendarme’s leg were injured by the students.
9.  The applicants were questioned the same day by gendarme officers, and stated that they were aware that prior permission had been sought and granted for the meeting.
10.  The same day the applicants were examined by a doctor. The applicants did not complain about any ill-treatment and the doctor did not observe any injuries on their bodies. They were then sent to the prosecutor’s office where their release was ordered.
11.  The gendarme whose leg was injured during the incident informed the prosecutor on 28 May 2002 that the name of the student who injured him was C.G.
12.  On 5 July 2002 the Bolu prosecutor filed an indictment with the Bolu Criminal Court of First Instance (hereinafter the “trial court”), and accused the applicants and the remaining seven students of “breaching Law no. 2911”. The prosecutor also stated in his indictment that the applicants and C.G. had punched and kicked the gendarme captain and the gendarme.
13.  In the course of the criminal proceedings the applicants rejected the allegations of the use of force by them, but accepted that they had taken part in the demonstration. Captain Y. was not heard by the trial court, but was questioned by a court in another city, pursuant to a letter rogatory sent to that court by the trial court.
14.  On 6 May 2003 the trial court, on the basis of statements given by eyewitnesses, gendarmes, as well as “video footage of the incident”, convicted the applicants of having taken part in an illegal demonstration and of having used force when the gathering was being dispersed by the gendarmes, in breach of section 32 § 3 of Law no. 2911. According to the judgment, in addition to Captain Y. and the gendarme mentioned above, four other gendarmes had also apparently been injured by the applicants and their fellow student C.G. The applicants were sentenced to two years and six months’ imprisonment.
15.  The applicants appealed against the judgment, and argued that there had been insufficient evidence to warrant their conviction and that they had not been given the opportunity to examine the video footage. In their appeals the applicants referred to their constitutional right to take part in, inter alia, peaceful demonstrations. Finally, the applicants drew the Court of Cassation’s attention to the fact that similar gatherings had been organised in the past to commemorate Kenan Mak’s death and that there had never been any problems caused by those gatherings.
16.  On 9 March 2006 the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment of the first-instance court in respect of the applicants.
17.  The applicants asked the prosecutor at the Court of Cassation to apply to that court for rectification of the decision of 9 March 2006. In their letter to the prosecutor the applicants also pointed out that none of the injured gendarmes had accused them of inflicting their injuries.
18.  The prosecutor accepted the applicants’ request and on 31 July 2006 applied to the Court of Cassation’s president for rectification of the decision. In his application the prosecutor noted that none of the injured gendarmes had named the applicants as the persons responsible for their injuries. The prosecutor referred to Article 11 of the Convention and argued that university grounds could not be regarded as public places within the meaning of Law no. 2911 and that the applicants’ and their fellow students’ actions could not therefore be regarded to be in breach of that Law. The students’ failure to hold their meeting in a place other than the one for which permission had been granted could only be regarded as a disciplinary issue and dealt with by the university administration and not by courts of law.
19.  The prosecutor also noted that the disturbance in the demonstration had been caused by the gendarmes’ intervention. Moreover, the reports drawn up by the gendarmes who had taken part in the operation (see paragraph 8 above) had not made any mention of physical resistance by the students. The trial court had not examined the video footage and had not asked the injured gendarmes to identify the persons responsible for their injuries. As such, the trial court’s decision to convict the applicants under section 32 § 3 of the Law no. 2911 had not been in accordance with applicable law and procedure.
20.  In its decision of 10 October 2006 the Grand Chamber of the Court of Cassation’s Criminal Division observed that the transcripts of one of the hearings held by the trial court did not bear the signature of the court’s clerk, and quashed the decision convicting the applicants. It deemed it unnecessary to examine the points raised by the prosecutor.
21.  A retrial began before the trial court, which rendered its decision on 24 October 2007. Having examined the video footage, the trial court observed that eleven and a half minutes had elapsed between the beginning of the gathering and its dispersal by the gendarmes. It also noted that neither the applicants nor any of the other participants in the demonstration had used force against the gendarmes. Nevertheless, the trial court considered that the applicants and the other students had taken part in an unauthorised meeting and had thus acted in breach of section 32 §1 of Law no. 2911. According to the trial court, the gathering had been unlawful because it had not been organised in the canteen but rather had taken place outside. The applicants were sentenced to one year and three months’ imprisonment, but the sentence was suspended.
22.  The applicants appealed. The appeal proceedings are still pending before the Court of Cassation.
23.  In the meantime, on account of his participation in the demonstration, on 9 December 2002 the university imposed a disciplinary sanction on the first applicant Ali Akgöl, and expelled him from the university for two semesters. As the university’s decision was not quashed by the administrative courts until 2004, the decision was enforced and the applicant’s graduation from the university was thus delayed for one year.
24.  Also in the meantime, the first applicant completed his studies and started working as a teacher. Nevertheless, on 22 August 2006 the Ministry of Education dismissed him from his post on account of his attendance at the demonstration. He was reinstated in his post in July 2007, following the quashing of his conviction by the Court of Cassation (see paragraph 20 above).